The game was nationally televised, featuring the top high school basketball prospects from each corner of the country, and was being played in his backyard.

Saturday night’s Under Armour Elite 24, played in the shadows of the Brooklyn Bridge, basically demanded a big performance from Isaiah Whitehead.

Yet when asked if that added any pressure to his broad shoulders, the dynamic 6-foot-4 guard from Coney Island kindly smiled and reminded reporters he’s dealt with more from the time his name was splashed across newspaper pages and web sites before his freshman year of high school, being compared to former Lincoln legends Lance Stephenson, Stephen Marbury and Sebastian Telfair.

“I’ve dealt with pressure my whole life,” Whitehead said with a smile, the night before he was scheduled to visit Indiana. “This is nothing to me now.”

Whitehead, a consensus five-star recruit ranked 12th in the nation by Scout.com, didn’t seem bothered by any of the pressure. In fact, he seems to bask in the spotlight that came with the ESPN cameras, all the highly ranked players, the hometown crowd wanting to see the hometown kid perform, and even the streetball announcer Joe Pope, who gave him the nickname “IBM — I’m a bad man.”

Recruited by the likes of Indiana, Minnesota, Syracuse, UCLA and Arizona, Whitehead put on a scoring display, pouring in a game-high 26 points as Team Coney Island held off Team Bed-Stuy, 114-109, and he garnered MVP honors. He scored in a variety of ways, from deep on the perimeter, with spinning moves into the paint and pull-up jump shots — displaying all the skills that have an array of top Division I programs after him.

“More people question him here than out of town,” said Dwayne “Tiny” Morton, Whitehead’s high school coach. “He gets more respect from his peers on the so-called AAU level than he does in his town. [But] he showed up in his town.”

The highlight of the evening came late in the second half, as elite Dallas point guard and SMU commit Emmanuel Mudiay, an MVP on the losing side, was leading Team Bed-Stuy’s furious comeback, wowing the crowd with his flashy moves around the basket and no-look passes.

Sensing the night — his night — was about to slip away, Whitehead got the ball and waived off his teammates, asking for a clear out against Mudiay. He faked right — his strong side, and spun to his left, catching Mudiay off guard, to the delight of the Brooklynites in attendance, drew the contact for a foul and scored with his left hand off the glass.

“I just wanted to show off,” Whitehead said. “This is my hometown. I just wanted to show them what Brooklyn basketball is all about.”